Bush says 'area's hurting' after Rita

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Bush touring hard-hit areas

BEAUMONT - President Bush got a firsthand look today at Hurricane Rita's damage to U.S. energy resources in the birthplace of the modern oil industry. "This area's hurting,'' Bush said.

Bush then took an hourlong helicopter ride over the debris-strewn communities along the Texas-Louisiana border where Rita blew ashore. The worst was the Louisiana port town of Cameron, where most structures were wiped out.

The Marine One helicopter circled the town so the president could get a complete look, then flew south over the ocean to fly by an offshore oil rig. He also flew over flattened and flooded homes, hundreds of downed trees and dozens of wandering, stranded cows.

Bush was briefed on local response to the storm before his ride lifted off from the Beaumont airport. He got another report from Louisiana officials after landing in Lake Charles.

Bush said his priorities were to assist people with food and water, restore power and provide fuel.

"We fully understand that it's hard to maintain order if you don't have fuel for your cars and first responders,'' the president said.

Frustration is building in Southeast Texas over the government's response to Rita.

With homes smashed, trees and power lines downed and a looming shortage of food and water, one official even threatened to take federal relief supplies by force, if necessary.

"If you have enough policemen to take it from them, take it," Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith said Monday during a meeting of city and county officials.

FEMA has been under fire for weeks for its response to Hurricane Katrina, after thousands of people were left stranded in New Orleans for days without food or water.

The magnitude of Rita's damage appears to be less than Katrina's, and FEMA officials have set up 16 stations in nine East Texas counties. The stations will distribute water, ice and food.

'Short on food and water'

Still, Southeast Texas officials -- and residents -- are unhappy.

Keith Allen Davis, 38, rode his bicycle more than 10 miles from his home in Groves in Port Arthur, seeing not a soul along his route. There were no aid stations along the streets, and little food for those who stayed behind. Davis, who rode out the storm but now is running low on water and food, was confused by the time he made it into town.

"I figured there would be someone here to help me,'' he said, sweating profusely. "But there's no one, no one no one. I don't know how I'll get by.''

Evacuations from the ravaged region continued today as people who did not leave before the storm faced dwindling supplies and others who slipped back home reconsidered their decision after finding their houses uninhabitable.

Terria Waggoner, 40, carried her 5-month-old grandson up to a line of people waiting to board buses to San Antonio outside of Ford Park, the hub of Beaumont's relief efforts. She had returned home with her brother and his girlfriend on Monday, but quickly regretted the decision.

"He was our only transportation, so we came back, but we don't have anything here,'' she said. "We don't have enough water or food. And with this heat, I just can't have the baby in it.''

In Port Arthur, the Medical Center of Southeast Texas is asking emergency operation personnel to return to work, said Hospital Director Craig Desmond. He said the hospital hoped to have the emergency center up and running by Thursday.

Around Jefferson County and other parts of East Texas today, hundreds of trees and power lines still block roads, hindering rescue efforts. About 9 in 10 people in the Beaumont and Port Arthur area evacuated before the storm, and little activity or aid is visible on the streets, except for the fleets of trucks working to restore energy.

"A lot of people are stuck in their homes, and they are going to bed hungry or worse because we cannot get to them,'' said Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffin.

Local officials say the federal government should be doing a better job to help make the region habitable again but welcomed President Bush's visit.

"I think he has a better understanding of the problem and the breakdown in communication about our needs and what we are receiving,'' Griffin said today. "I am eager to see some action.''

"We are very short on food and water, and the FEMA trucks that were supposed to be here just aren't here," Griffith said.

FEMA officials did not respond to requests for comment on the complaints. But Steve McCraw, Texas director of Homeland Security, said on Monday that he spoke with Griffith, the official in charge of managing the disaster locally, and understood his anxiety.

"You know, when you ask for something, you want it right away. You want generators. You want food, and you want water right there," McCraw said. "He's going to get frustrated when he doesn't get things immediately, and we understand that."

But, McCraw said, "I have confidence that FEMA will get that to them."

Griffith was angry over an incident in which a FEMA truck was supposed to deliver fuel to a police facility but took the gasoline to a fire station. When the crew learned its error, it left, the county judge said, without providing the fuel to anyone.

If police had been available, Griffith said, they should have just taken the fuel.

Griffith also was outraged over FEMA portable generators that, he said, were sitting in a park and not being distributed.

"We can't help it if politicians come here and just want to be seen by the media," Griffith said.

"We hit the ground running with our own commodities and our own facilities, but we have no support."

Beaumont officials also cited a shortage of water pumps and generators. They complained that federal relief teams had failed to show up and that fuel deliveries had not been made as promised.

In nearby Port Arthur, Mayor Oscar Ortiz also expressed frustration with FEMA's response in his city, which was severely damaged but largely empty after at least 95 percent of its residents evacuated.

Rita left behind upended trees and snapped power lines on nearly every Port Arthur street. Virtually the only movement Monday came from emergency crews, a handful of military personnel and energy trucks repairing lines.

But Ortiz said he had seen only three FEMA officials on the ground as of Monday afternoon. "They are supposedly bringing us some diesel, but I haven't seen it yet," he said. "We are relying on some of the refineries in town to keep us on the road.

"The (FEMA) director is a very nice person," Ortiz added, "but that is not what we need now. We need someone who is going to do what they say they are going to do."

The mayor said there were not enough supplies for residents who remained in the city during the storm and the few who had slipped back in since it passed. In addition, there were 700 to 800 emergency personnel in the area, as well as about 700 energy workers who needed supplies.

Andre Wimer, city manager of Nederland said he was tired of getting the run-around from federal officials.

"We spend the day faxing and talking, and we don't get any feedback," Wimer said.

"I realize that there is a significant logistics issue, and I appreciate that. But there is a significant amount of equipment and manpower sitting at (local FEMA headquarters), and for whatever reason, it has not been released," Wimer said.

Gov. Rick Perry also put pressure on FEMA Monday to reimburse Texas for all costs associated with Hurricane Rita, as the federal agency did with Hurricane Katrina.

But Perry said FEMA, so far, has agreed to pay 100 percent of the cost of Hurricane Rita for only the first 72 hours after the storm. In a letter to President Bush, Perry said the two hurricanes should be considered as one disaster, because part of the state's Rita-related costs involved evacuating people from New Orleans from Texas cities.

Too busy for blame

For many of Rita's victims, accountability hasn't entered the picture. It's still all about survival.

Two neat piles of logs flank the driveway to the Nguyen home in Port Arthur, the product of three days work with a small handsaw.

Trieu Nguyen and his father evacuated before the storm but returned Saturday, slipping past road blocks. They came home to find two large trees leaning on the roof of their house. The carport had blown away and fallen leaves blanketed the entire lawn.

With no power and little gas, they had nothing to do but begin the clean up.

"We think of it as camping,'' Lee Nguyen said as his son began to saw another piece of tree trunk. "If you look at it that way, you feel much better.''

The sound of Nguyens sawing was one of the few sounds in this mostly deserted town home to about 60,000.

Signs of life were few, but Rita's wrath marked virtually every street with upended trees, shredded roofs and snapped power lines. There was little standing water but wind damaged everything in the hurricanes path.

Chris Palmer, of Dallas, led a crew clearing streets blocked by thick tree trucks and covered with dense layers of debris, a mixture of branches, leaves and roofing. After less than a day on the ground, Palmer was overwhelmed by the amount of work facing his team.

"I couldn't even begin to say how long it will take for us to make these roads passable for people to come back,'' he said. "On some of these streets where one huge trees after another is laying across the road, it is going to take days.''

Chronicle staffers Roma Khanna and Eric Hanson, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.